


Keith

by thetasteofsunshine



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Arcade, Kissing, M/M, he gay, keith ships it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-31 00:52:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13963794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetasteofsunshine/pseuds/thetasteofsunshine
Summary: Will Byers started work at the arcade. His friends are glad (story told in Keith The Cheeto Guy's perspective).





	Keith

**Author's Note:**

> this story can also be found @mi-cycle-wheeler on tumblr

Keith loved to have Will Byers over at the arcade. All of his other friends were too loud, or complained too much. But not Will. So, during his Junior year, when he sent in a job application and Keith said, “Sure, why not?”

Will was always good at his job, and when two kids were arguing over Galaga, Keith always sent Will over, who had a calm voice, and who Keith had never heard yell even once.

Keith let him stay after hours, in which his friends would always come by and try to beat MadMax’s score on Dig Dug (they never could). It wasn't long until Keith had given him his own key to the place, after Will promised he wouldn't let his friends even  _ know _ about it.

But, for unknown reasons, after he got the key, Will would show up to work late with heavy bags under his eyes, but still the smile persistent on his face. When Keith asked about it, Will just replied with, “School,” and Keith left it at that.

One day, as Keith was locking up, he felt like he was forgetting something.  _ Probably the Cheetos I need to buy tomorrow morning,  _ he thought to himself, and he shrugged the thought away.

Once home however, he reached into his jeans pockets to empty them of their contents, and he couldn't find his wallet. He felt everywhere, but all that came up was a dime and some lint.

“Honey, are you home?” his mother called from the living room.

“Yeah Ma, but I think I left my wallet at work. I'll be back!” Keith walked right back out the door, back to his car to the twenty minute drive to the arcade.

He walked through the dark building, the only light a bluish kind coming from the neon sign on the wall behind the register. He pulled up the counter and opened the door marked  _ Employees Only _ , not even registering the fact that it was already unlocked.

Sure enough, his wallet was sitting on the table in the corner, perched on the edge as if waiting for its owner. But Keith didn't pay attention to that because his gaze was focused, uh,  _ elsewhere _ .

Draped across the Pac-Man machine reserved for employees were two boys, so close together he didn't know where one started and the other ended, lips locked and hands in hair and eyes shut tight. It was milliseconds before Keith realized who was standing there, who had shown up to work that day wearing the exact same checkered shirt and those exact same paint-splattered shoes.

“Will?” Keith gasped. The boys seemed to disconnect faster than light, one suddenly two feet away from the other. The other boy, Mike Wheeler (Keith only knew his name because of his hot older sister) was staring wide-eyed at him, and all three people in the room seemed to look like deer caught in headlights.

“It isn't what it looks like!” Mike spluttered out, raising his arms in defense, although his kiss-swollen lips seemed to argue. He fell silent as Keith was still trying to wrap his mind around what he was seeing.

“Wha...uh...I don't-”

“You can fire me if you want,” Will, timid, quiet little Will said in a guilty voice that didn't seem to match the smiling boy that Keith knew.

“No, don't! Please, it was my idea, i should take the blame.”

“Mike, you don't have to-”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why are you guys in the arcade at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday?” Keith asked, never the fastest in a conversation. He wasn't bothered by the making out part, and even less that it was two boys.

This was clearly not what the boys expected, and Mike was quite confused. “Isn't it obvious?”

“Well, yeah, but couldn't you wait until it like a Friday or something?”

“Wait, so you're not gonna fire me?” Will asked, still awestruck that he wasn't in trouble.

“Nah. I just needed my wallet.” With that, Keith walked over to the table and grabbed his wallet, storing it safely in his back pocket. He was going to close the door before he turned around. “And keep it PG in here, okay?”

…

When Keith got home, twenty minutes later, his mom asked what took him so long. He just smiled and said, “oh, y'know. Traffic was terrible.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay but I made this because I thought "who would nobody think to be the first person to find out about the Byler relationship?” and Keith was like the first person I thought of


End file.
